Dead End
by antepathy
Summary: After "Prisoner", before "Break"--Starscream is forced to lead a failing mission to recapture a base from the Autobots. We intro Blackout, Dead End, and two of the Arcees! Will the Autobots win?


Pars Prima

**Bourzey Castle, Southern Syria**

Ratchet ducked, instinctively, at the buzz-thump of the EMP burst. Yellow dust shook down from the large stone walls of the gateway he crouched in. Something deep in his chassis gave a sickening dropping feeling as he heard the distinctive clattering crash one of his fellow Autobots falling over. He cursed, softly.

"Ironhide," Flareup said, her voice sick. "He'd gone ahead."

"As usual," Lennox added.

Prime gave a worried scowl. He wasn't angry at Ironhide, Ratchet knew; but he'd been fighting these challenges to his authority for cycles now. It didn't make them any easier that they were familiar. "We'll need to disarm the EMP before we can retrieve him," he said, calmly, changing the mission objectives instantaneously, without any outward sign of the inner distress he was feeling.

"On it," MacCallum, one of the NEST soldiers, said, shucking his electronic equipment and grabbing a tool kit and running into the darkness of the Syrian night. The stars above gave a cold and lightless light , just enough for the humans to be able to pick out the contours of the old castle which the Decepticons had picked for their first base on Earth. Ratchet and the other bots had no choice but to wait. One EMP casualty was enough, especially on a mission with one approach route up a steep grade of shifting gravel and very little chance of a Chinook pickup. Chromia and Flareup rolled up to Prime.

"We can go on with the humans," Chromia said.

Prime shook his head.

"We're faster than Ironhide. We can dodge an EMP. You know that: that's why you brought us along."

"You might be able to dodge one, but they might have daisy chained them." Lennox, cutting in. He was strangely protective of the cycle bots.

"So what do we do?" Flareup rolled back and forth on her wheel, anxious, peering into the night into which MacCallum had run.

"You know we're safe," Lennox said. "Let MacCallum do his job. We'll go in with a sweeper, and let you know if it's all clear."

Even Prime chafed at Lennnox's plan, though it was the only thing that made sense. The humans were entirely unharmed by the EMP bursts. One or two, sure, had claimed to experience nausea or a bit of lightheadedness, but nothing like the entire systems collapse a bot felt. But the humans were so…small and easily damaged. It felt wrong to expose them to danger.

"I'm wondering," Epps cut in, thumbing the switch on his radio, "Why they haven't already opened up on us. We're in a nice bottleneck right here."

"Lulling us into a false sense of security," Lennox cracked.

"Yeah? It ain't working."

Ratchet spoke. "Is it possible the base is abandoned?" The words felt unpleasant to him, as if they had a bad taste. They'd done so much intelligence work, were so sure they had the element of surprise. A Decepticon base was a treasure chest of potential information; megagigs of sensitive files, revealing everything from access codes to chain of command to the nature of their mission. As in, why, after years of just spot appearances here and there, had they suddenly set up a planetside base? And why here?

They'd been so excited over this lead that they'd left their prisoner as a fallback. It was a neat solution; one of Prime's of course. Interrogations were messy and morally dubious to begin with. And Starscream could spin a lie so pretty it could blind a bot. So they'd let him sit there, as plan B, as plans went ahead to attack target A.

"Abandoned?" Prime considered. "All of the defenses we have seen have been passive. We've heard no sound, not even a comm squeak."

"We had no FLIR hits either," Epps added, "But walls this thick could block anything short of an inferno." True: the cons had chosen their base pretty wisely. An ancient, abandoned castle high up in the mountains. It commanded the view of valleys falling away on three sides. Its only neighbors were local goats. And these ancient humans knew how to build to last—each stone of the castle was a large block of hard, heavy stone.

"We shall be cautious," Prime decided. MacCallum trotted back to the group, his footsteps echoing in the large enclosed yard inside the gate they all crouched in. "Done," he said. "Ironhide's down, about fifty in and fifty to the left. Apparently some blind area he was checking."

"Is he okay?" Flareup rolled up to MacCallum. Mac kept his helmet on with one hand as he tilted his head up to look her in the eye.

"Not for me to say. But it looks like it was only the EMP."

"That blind is cleared?"

"Absolutely. Nothing with so much as a clock radio's EMF field."

"We go to him, then." Prime moved forward. The NEST soldiers surged around his feet, pushing ahead.

As soon as they reached Ironhide, Ratchet got to work. The burst didn't look too bad at all. Ironhide only caught a glance or an echo. He'd be up and moving before the end of the mission. Just in time, Ratchet thought, to get himself hurt again.

In the end, Prime had no choice but to follow Lennox's plan. The humans slipped on ahead through the courtyard, rolling on the outer edges of their bootsoles, in that eerie smooth way that their special operations taught. Behind them, Flareup and Chromia rolled, as backup, their tires crunching audibly in the sandy soil. The minutes stretched long. Working on Ironhide, Ratchet was only dimly aware of when they buzzed back to say they'd made it to the central building.

"We need to go. How's Ironhide?"

Ratchet frowned. "I don't like to leave him."

"Is there anything more you can do for him right now?"

Ratchet shook his head. "He'll be coming out of it on his own in another minute or so."

"The NEST soldiers can stay with him. We need you at that building."

There was nothing else to say. Prime led. You followed. Ratchet paced across the long yard with Prime, a bit apprehensive how conspicuous he was in his bright yellow armor. Maybe the base wasn't abandoned. Maybe the Cons were just biding their time. What had Lennox said? 'False sense of security'?

The central building, which actually took up the entire west side of the enclosed yard, had had some minor alterations done. Fewer than you might expect: these medieval humans built for height. Ratchet had to hunch only a little bit. Prime was uncomfortably crowded, but the Arcees fit into the place like it had been made for them.

Lennox took charge, as Prime got himself stuck between two large stone piers. "All right. Epps, MacCallum, Kennedy, with me to the right. Alexander, DeGuardia, and Opatowski to the left. Arcees, you want in?"

"What about me?"

"Ratchet? You wanna come?" Lennox tried to hide his surprise. He knew Ratchet was a competent fighter, but also, that Ratchet hated it.

"Prime will guard our exit, so I might as well do something."

Lennox sent him off with Alexander's team to the left, along with Flareup.

"I don't like this at all," Flareup confided. "Where are they?"

Ratchet shrugged. "I'm hoping we don't find out."

"But how could they have heard we were coming? The Colonel said everything he'd gathered had been on paper. Unmonitorable. We had no electronic communications for them to hack."

"Maybe the Colonel was wrong." Again. Ratchet didn't have fond feelings for Colonel Axelrod. Pushy little warmonger on the best of days.

Alexander called them to a halt outside the first door. A Decepticon door—not banded wood, but solid metal. "Any idea what's behind door number one?"

Ratchet considered. "Could be anything. This close to the entryway, maybe supplies?" He wasn't an expert on Decepticon architecture. The only times he'd seen Con bases before he'd been under heavy fire and trying to keep the escape vector open. It didn't leave a lot of time for appreciating the floorplan.

"Open your way or ours?" Their way involved high explosives. Each was equally likely to set off any booby traps. But their way could call unnecessary attention.

"Our way," Ratchet said. If he did it, he'd be in the line of fire. He coded the door. It slid open to halfway, then ground to a mechanically complaining halt.

"Oh, shit," DeGuardia said. "Here it comes." He'd already switched on his targeting laser. Ratchet could see the dots of red lights from their lasers dancing around the shadowy slice of the open doorway. A long wait. Nothing. Just as they were starting to relax, a slight scuffling. The lasers snapped to attention again.

"Something's in there," Opatowski hissed. "I saw movement."

"Something like a rat?"

"Nope, bigger."

"A Con?"

"Not so big."

"Thanks, 'Ski," Alexander said, sourly. "Super helpful."

"Getting a FLIR hit," DeGuardia said. "Maybe more."

"Definitely in there. Not friendly." Opatowski felt justified.

"Yeah?" Alexander said, "Neither are we." He signalled them to side line the door. "We go in on three. Ski, you go right, DG, you left. I'm straight up the middle."

"What about us?" Flareup said.

"He," Alexander nodded his head at Ratchet, "can't squeeze past the door. You can come with us, but keep your firefan over our head level." Flareup nodded, rolling to the end of the short line. Ratchet stood by, feeling useless. Again.

Alexander signalled, and the four of them rushed into the narrow gap in the door. A wild burst of blinding lights, but no sound. At first Ratchet thought there had been an explosion so loud it had shut down his audio receptors. Then the strobing lights swung away again, and he heard, too clearly, the sounds of weapons—the high sharp crack of the human's gunpowder weapons, and the thrum of Flareup's main gun. And one very, very sickening human scream.

Ratchet couldn't stand it: he heaved at the stuck door forcing the opening wider with a loud sound of protesting gears. He had to be able to do something. Even if it just meant pulling the injured human out of harm's way.

By the time he forced his way in, it was all over: two gangly repairbots, barely larger than the humans themselves, lay in twitching heaps, their unarmored bodies peppered with NEST rounds. One of the humans was down, a puddle of dark liquid spreading from somewhere under his torso. Flareup held a third repair bot by two of its longer arms. Its bladed limbs swing wildly, but her reach was longer and the best the bot could do was score the paint on her arms.

"He must know something useful," Flareup said, wincing as the repair bot scraped her arms again.

"Take him back to Prime," Ratchet said. "I'll take the human." He scooped the injured NEST soldier—Alexander—into his hands as gently as he could manage. The soldier's respiration was shallow and his pulse thready, but he seemed stable enough to move. Not that there was much choice.

"We'll secure the area," DeGuardia said. Flareup stopped. "Ratchet. I can't leave them."

"Right." He reached out his other hand, closing it on one of the repairbot's narrow arms. "I'll take him. You stay here and help clean up. But don't leave this room until we come back for you." He looked around the still-dark room. "They had to be guarding something in here."

Flareup released the repair bot's other arm. The bot twisted in Ratchet's grasp. At first Ratchet thought the bot was trying to scratch him the way he had the cycle bot. Too late he realized what the little bot was doing.

Too late being when the repair bot ripped open his own central processor.

"Ratchet," Prime said, sitting, hunched and miserable, in the room he'd gotten stuck in. The ceilings were too low for his height, the aisled between the stone support piers too narrow for him to do much but some sort of useless sidestroke. "What happened?"

"We need a medevac for the human." Ratchet said, cradling Alexander to his chest. "I'll have to notify the troops outside to call it in."

"And your arm?"

Ratchet's mouth tightened. "Repair bot suicided. Not as bad as it looks." Really, just some scorch marks up his armor. But the very idea made him sick with fear. Chromia had wobbled on her wheel at the very sight. She was young, and her distress made sense on a simple level. Ratchet was upset for another reason: When had they become so fearsome to the Decepticons that one would rather kill himself than be taken prisoner?

"All right," Prime said, though the concern in his eyes was palpable. Ratchet sensed how much Prime hated being stuck here, useless. Well, Ratchet could relate to _that_ feeling. "They said Ironhide's up and coming in."

Great. Well, Ratchet thought, even an injured Ironhide was more useful than he was at this sort of thing. "Have we found anything yet?"

Prime shook his head. "Drives the first team found were wiped clean. They ran into a few…surprises as well, but they weren't aimed at something as small as they are," he added, hurriedly. "They're all just fine."

"I do not like this." Ratchet said. In his arms, Alexander moaned.

"I don't like it either," Prime admitted. "Call it in and get him to safety."

Pars Secunda Nemesis

"Incompetence! Cowardice!" Megatron roared. "You almost astonish me with the consistency of your failures, Starscream. And now you come in as if you had actually accomplished something worthy of a warrior." He paused, as if debating whether to spit in contempt.

Starscream lay in a repair cradle, which reminded him unpleasantly of the suspension harness the humans had kept him in. Repair bots scuttled over him, one laying reinforcing mesh over his damaged fuel lines, two at work replacing the warped barrels of his right arm's chain gun, several more working on the various dents in his armor from nearly 400 NEST rounds. Whatever Megatron might think, Starscream hadn't gone down easily. "I have actionable intelligence, Megatron. Which I have handed over to Soundwave."

"Soundwave is not in charge here. I am." Megatron advanced on Starscream. Repair bots squealed and dashed out of the way. Megatron hooked one of his long fingers under a clavicular strut, lifting Starscream bodily from the cradle. "You do best to remember that." The strut groaned under the strain. Starscream hissed in pain.

"I-I will, my lord."

Megatron dropped Starscream back into the repair cradle. The repair bot who had been working on the fuel lines shrieked as it got pinned under the larger robot's weight. Starscream twisted, trying to free it.

"Soundwave tells me," and Megatron made that sound like a further accusation of incompetence, that he had to hear something second-hand, "that you claim the Autobots have discovered the source of Earth's energon."

"Not _the_ source. But there is a source, extra-terrestrial, that is more easily accessible. Possibly two."

"Asteroid impacts."

"Yes, my lord."

"Asteroids of energon."

"Y-yes, my lord." Starscream sounded unsure. It sounded stupid when Megatron said it. Had he fallen for an Autobot intelligence trick? The repair bots gingerly retook their places repairing him, one prising away at the melted talons of his right hand with almost malicious force. Was that the one he had fallen on?

Megatron grunted, giving away nothing. A moment later, he said, "You gave the order to abandon the base."

"Not, umm, not the order. A tactical suggestion, only." He felt himself shrinking back against the plasmetal webbing of the cradle, inwardly cursing himself for his cowardice.

"A tactical suggestion. Like your surrender." Megatron's eyes narrowed to slits. If he could cut Starscream with his gaze, Starscream would be leaking from a dozen ruptured lines.

"Yes," Starscream's voice came out in a whisper. What had he told the human? That even though he could endure pain, he was afraid of it. Oh, yes.

Megatron's hands curled into large, spiny fists for a long moment. "You," he said tightly, "will go retake the base."

"I am not fully repaired yet."

"That is not my concern. It was a waste of resources to rescue you. We shall not waste any more repairing you until you prove yourself worthy of the task." With a gesture, he dismissed the repair bots, who scattered like cockroaches.

"Alone?"

"No. I shall send a competent," he stressed the word, "warrior with you. You may have Blackout, since he saw fit to rescue you." Ah, so this was to be punishment for Blackout as well. "And a few smaller ones, to handle the inside work."

He paused, waiting. Starscream struggled up from the repair cradle. "Yes, my lord. Right away."

"You may," Megatron added as if it were the greatest favor, "rearm before you depart."

Starscream ducked his eyes, and hastened out of the repair bay, his right foot still dragging a bit numbly. He could feel Megatron's eyes on his back as he left, and heard Megatron spit, "Pathetic."

Pathetic. Yes.

**Pars Tertia**

**Blackout**

Dead End bumped against the drones, packed in with him inside the red-lit cave of Blackout's cargo area. It was just his luck to be 'chosen' for this mission. It sounded like a real winner, getting lumped with Megatron's favorite whipping boy and Blackout, the very epitome of 'big and stoopid'. He didn't particularly care to die with losers like this. Big boys who measured everything by sheer physical size. They normally kept the choice assignments for themselves, sticking the little guys with the impossibly boring duties like ventilation maintenance and completely redundant communications monitoring duty. And that, probably, Dead End thought, was how he'd gotten sucked into this tornado of crap: he'd been the one to pick up Starscream's distress call. More, he'd thought to pass it on to someone else. Starscream, Blackout and him: three nice links in a chain of loserdom. Next time, moron, he told himself, keep your damn mouth shut.

Blackout banked sharply, throwing the drones and Dead End into another tumble at the far side of the cargo area in a tangle of limbs. A few of the drones bleated. They'd probably be useless by the time they hit groundside.

"Hey, watch your flying!" he yelled.

" You may tell me how to fly when I can give you advice on how to be a loser, grounder," Blackout said, sourly. Almost as if in spite, the copter took another hard bank. Dead End skidded hard on his elbows, a drone's head sliding into his chassis, its neck at an odd angle.

"You're hurting the drones."

"They would be significantly more hurt if they had to handle these updrafts on their own. If you'd like, you can find out for yourself." Blackout opened his side cargo door. The night air whistled past, drowning out the roar of Blackout's rotor. One of the drones slid toward the open door, its claws scrabbling in panic at Blackout's floor. Dead End lunged and reached the drone just as its legs flopped out the door. He heaved it back in.

"Stop being a bastard," he hissed. "Drones haven't done anything to you."

Blackout mumbled something about the drones not having done anything _for_ him either, but he ratcheted the door closed. The drone Dead End rescued huddled up against him. Poor little guy. Barely self-aware, and about to be thrown into combat. And probably die. What kind of life was that to die before you even knew you were alive?

Dead End's commo unit buzzed. He tapped the comm on. "The humans have called for a medical evacuation," Soundwave's eerily bland voice. "That will be your opening. Starscream will maintain altitude until required." Human medevacs were often done by Sikorsky helicopters. And what a coincidence--that's just what Dead End was sitting in/arguing with right now.

"You get that?" he said to Blackout.

"Yes, runticon. Real warriors rate integrated comm systems. Maybe one day you'll get yours." The copter began descending. "But I doubt it."

The drones began checking their weapons, nervously. Dead End wondered what they would say if they could talk. The one who had injured its neck twisted it back into position with a wince of something like pain. It bothered Dead End to think the drones felt pain. But couldn't feel anything else. Pain and fear, that was the range of their experience. The essential elements of life. Should he say something? Yeah, right. Like what? Do your best? It'll all work out? Die gloriously on the field of battle for a cause you aren't even developed enough to understand? Truth was, they were probably all going to die. And Dead End doubted any words would make that sound any better or hurt any less.

**Part Quartia**

**Bourzey Castle**

"There it is," Lennox said, squinting into the sky at the faint sound of rotors. "That's our medevac. How's he doing?"

Briscoe, the NEST team's primary medic, looked up from where he was kneeling over Alexander. "Pretty good, all things considered. We've stopped the bleeding and he's breathing on his own."

"He'll make it?"

"If he gets to a proper surgical unit, absolutely."

"Well, chopper's coming right now. He ready to go?"

"Ready as he'll ever be."

Ratchet and the other NEST soldiers in the courtyard looked up expectantly at the sky from which they could hear the distinctive whup whup of a big chopper. A dark shape moved against the starry sky.

Lennox shook his head. "Still can't forget that first time."

"They are deceitful, Major," Ratchet said. He'd been to check on Ironhide, who had pushed him out of the way and stomped into the building as if mad at the courtyard. Probably mad that he'd missed some action. Useless Ratchet, once again. So he'd watched the human medic work on Alexander instead. At least he might learn something useful.

Epps's voice floated out from the west-side building. "Chopper's inbound. Got them on radio."

"Yeah, know that!" Lennox shouted back. "We've got visual."

"What? No way. He's 50 kliks out. Coming from the west."

"He's right here—oh, shit!" Lennox dropped his night vision monocular in panic, grabbing for the rifle he'd slung over his back. "Sights up!" The NEST soldiers outside with him fumbled for their guns, hastily forming a protective circle around the fallen Alexander.

"Briscoe, we gotta move him!" They'd set up in the center of the courtyard to be able to load and out quickly. Lennox's voice was drowned out by the roar of the Sikorsky's main rotor. The rotorwash kicked up clouds of fine grit from the courtyard, a few stiff, dried leaves of the local goatweed slicing through the air like weapons.

"We can't—" Whatever Briscoe was about to say was snatched into the spinning air.

Ratchet scooped up Alexander, trying his hardest not to damage the little hanging device Briscoe had rigged to the stretcher that delivered some fluid that Briscoe had called 'plasma' in the process. With Alexander in his hands, Ratchet looked around—where to run? The blind where Ironhide had been hit? Back to the tower building? To the bottlenecked gate? If you're going to save a life, Ratchet berated himself, do it properly.

He ran toward the blind, figuring if all else failed he could block the Decepticons from getting at the injured human with his own body. Behind him, he heard the NEST soldiers opening up on the sleek black helicopter—the crack of the weapon firing, followed by the metallic ping of rounds striking home, all mixed into the sound of the rotors ominously winding down. Ratchet drew his weapon; puny, even to his own estimation. He hated weapons. He hated fighting. But the world didn't arrange itself around any bot's likes or dislikes.

The chopper's doors swung open and a seemingly endless mass of drones piled out from its red maw. It looked to Ratchet like the chopper was spilling mouthfuls of blood. A handful of the drones fell to the fire of the NEST soldiers before they could get their bearings. The others, rallied by someone else in there with them, someone not a drone, quickly learned to crouch for cover behind the bodies of their comrades, firing over or even through the wreckage of their fallen comrades.

Blackout stood up, his rotors still spinning to a halt as he transformed. Ignoring the humans, he advanced on the building, his tail rotor still whirling in his hand. Ratchet had a perfect shot. Even with his little weapon, at this range, he had the perfect shot at one of Blackout's armor's weak spots—just under the rotor mount. He lifted his weapon, aiming along its sight rail. The perfect shot, he told himself. Get him before he injures anyone else. He hesitated. But then, in there, Prime and Ironhide and the Arcees, And the humans. He sighted again.

And he was nearly shaken off his feet by a heavy impact right in front of him. Starscream, standing easily twice his height, bristling with menace and much more intact than Ratchet remembered. Ratchet felt as if his joint fluid had frozen. Starscream? HERE? How? And then he thought, here comes payback. I did what I could, but it wasn't enough. He lowered his weapon, bracing himself. He could at least go out as what he was—not a warrior, not even a pretend one.

Starscream peered behind Ratchet, at Alexander pale and bloody on the stretcher. Ratchet flinched. Starscream looked down at Ratchet's lowered weapon, met his gaze and slowly, admonishingly, shook his head. He turned abruptly, and headed after Blackout toward the tower building.

Ratchet dropped to his knees, his weapon dropping next to him into the sandy soil. Not even a threat. He was armed, and Starscream had turned his back on him and walked away.

He was surprised how much the Decepticon's contempt hurt.

Pars Quinta

**Bourzey Castle**

Dead End fired a few rounds into the gaping doorway, rallying the drones around him. "Let's go!" He wasn't going in there alone. The bulk of the drones ran forward into the doorway, a few hanging back to follow Dead End. Oh look, he said to himself, look at all this leadership potential. Three out of every ten mindless drones follows me. Put that in my personnel file, if I ever get my crankcase outta this. Well, no point not to get further into it.

He ran inside, ducking as a round exploded near him. Bits of silver-grey armor and internal wiring spattered around him as the round took out some unlucky drone. Something big was firing on them. The shrieks of falling drones was maddening. Anyone who believed the prattle about the Autobots and their mercy and decency had never seen how easily and gleefully they mowed down bots with the intellects of small children. Another gun opened up from his left, a large pulse cannon. Dead End yanked the nearest drone down with him. Poor things were too stupid to recognize threats. Megatron's big idea: mindless obedient soldiers. They were mindless all right. That meant they didn't question his orders, but it also meant they didn't have the sense to step out of the way of incoming fire.

Dead End rolled to his side, returning fire. The drone he'd pulled down followed his lead, rising up on both knees to fire over Dead End's hip. Dead End grunted in satisfaction. Little guy was learning. Another large explosion, outside. The walls shook, filtering the air with yellow dust. He heard the whine of Blackout's tail rotor biting into the stone of the entryway.

The big threat—the Big Bot himself, apparently, not that a small circuit like Dead End ever got to see the high and mighty in the metal on a regular basis—turned his attention to the door, unsheathing a metal blade from his wrist. Well, that would keep him occupied, at least.

Dead End signalled the drones to take cover behind two of the large stone piers that supported the high arched roof. Not the best cover, but better than nothing. The ones that had followed him in scurried to obey with a speed that would have pleased Megatron himself. They even figured out, all by themselves, how to pop out from behind cover and fire off rounds up the tunnel, where the pulse cannon blast had come from.

Another knot of drones, however, stood in the middle of the chamber, firing blankly at anything that fired back. The floor around them was littered with the body parts of their fellow drones.

Dead End bit back a curse. He was not a hero. He was not a rescuing type. Let 'em die if they're too dumb to learn, he told himself, turning his attention back to the tunnel. A few NEST soldiers tried to dash around to the side of another pier where they'd have a better firing angle on the hiding drones. Dead End tossed a low-yield shrapnel grenade in front of them. Just to give them a second think on the matter. Stupid humans really shouldn't meddle in the affairs of bots. Easy to get hurt that way. Especially as easily as they got hurt.

A blue cycle bot rushed out, throwing a force-shield ahead of her, sparing the soldiers from the worst of the blast. Still, Dead End thought, they'd doubtless reconsider the wisdom of their strategy. He grunted in satisfaction, watching them scurry back into the relative safety of the tunnel.

The cycle bot wasn't done yet. She launched herself at the little knot of stupid drones. One barely had time to register surprise on its dumb little face before she landed on it with force enough to crack its chassis. A rainbow of fluids spurted up from the body, limbs flailing wildly, letting loose a whine that shook the gears in Dead End's head. The cycle bot was already done with him: rolling off him, she swung her guns towards the other drones, who, panicked, fired wildly.

Dead End threw himself at her, before he even knew what he was doing. If he'd even taken a first think at this one, he'd probably have stayed where he was. But the dumb drones. Those damn stupid drones…. He hit her mid-torso, sending them both sprawling between the Prime bot's feet. Overhead, the Prime's sword clashed noisily against Blackout's tail rotor, bits of chipped stone showering down around them. She spun away, but he wrapped his hands around one of her shocks, spinning his own wheels in reverse. She whipped around, and blinded him with a blast that missed his face by inches. She drove her second wheel down onto him, spinning it until it shrieked against his armor. Howling, Dead End let go. She flashed through the door.

More stone chips, bigger chunks, really, clattered down on him. No safety here, Dead End thought. Better where I could do some good.

Pars Sexta

**Bourzey Castle, courtyard**

Starscream blew the electronics from the NEST team with an EMP burst. They could still fire most of their weapons, but without targeting lasers, their aim degraded rapidly, and with their radios dead, they couldn't summon any unpleasant backup. He watched them make a coward's break to the castle gate, doubtless planning to make a last stand there. They'd be out of the way, at least, the little nuisances.

He staggered back as something hit square on the metal-shocked joint of his right leg. He swung down with his good arm, scooping up the twisting body of one of the Autobot's little cycle bots. She glared at him defiantly, raising her guns right to his face. He shook her like a ragdoll, enjoying the spanging sounds of some of her arms' control lines. He'd had enough of Autobots for the moment. He was probably a fool for letting Ratchet go, but Ratchet hadn't dared to sight a weapon on him. Let him have the paltry compensation of saving the life of one of the pitiful humans, but that was the end of Starscream's indulgence.

The bot in his hand flailed her tire-limbs, grinding hard against the inside of his wrist. He could feel cables overheating from the friction. Angry, he threw her to the ground, gratified to hear the crunching sound of her bouncing off the hard ground. And yet, she rolled agilely, and dared raise her arm gun to him again. This, he thought, was intolerable. The enemy, at least, ought to have some respect.

He pinned the offending arm with one foot, digging his sharp talons into the hardened rubber of one of her tires. The cycle bot shrieked, the tire puncturing with a sharp, snakelike hiss. Oh, but he wasn't done yet. They would learn respect. More than that, they would learn to regret deeply every humiliation they had put him through in that odious base on Diego Garcia. They had dared to forcibly disarm him? He would show them how that felt. One at a time, if necessary.

He smiled down at the cycle bot, narrowing his red eyes, amused by her defiant glare. "I," he said, "shall enjoy this. You shall not." He drove the talons of his good hand through the cycle bot's lightly-armored midsection, and curled his hand around her torso. And then, slowly, as slowly as he was able, he tore her body from her arm, still pinned under his foot.

She gave a gratifyingly long scream, one that heated every circuit in Starscream's body, before falling limp. Yes, oh yes. They would learn to fear him again.

Still there was a battle to be won. He couldn't spend as much time as he would have liked indulging his personal vengeance. Besides, it might send a more powerful message were he to keep her alive. And she was a small and rather pitiful target. He could do better. He would do better. He lost a leg: how would she like suffering without her arm? He ground the pinned arm into the soil with his foot, crushing the joint with a satisfying pop.

And then there was….

"Ratchet," he roared, turning to the cutaway blind where the yellow Autobot crouched with his human patient. "Incoming!" Starscream hurled the blue bot's now-inert body with all the force he could manage. Let the Autobot practice his mercy. If he could.

"Chromia!" Flareup screamed, her voice echoing down the tunnel/hall of the castle. She wobbled on her wheel, clutching one shoulder.

"What is it?" MacCallum yelled over his shoulder, his rifle still firing toward the slowly advancing drones. "I can't see her!"

"She got away from the red one," another NEST soldier added.

"She's hurt. Oh, Primus, Chromia!" Flareup moaned, her hands balling uselessly by her sides.

Ironhide seized her shoulder roughly. "We don't have time for this."

"But my sister—"

"Can take care of herself."

"She's hurt, Ironhide. I know it."

"It's your imagination. And if you don't want anyone else to get hurt, you'll get your head back in the game and follow orders."

"It's not my imagination. We're sisters. We're linked like that," Flareup said, hotly. "I have to go after her."

Ironhide fired off another blast of his pulse cannon before turning to face Flareup. "What you have to do is stay here and fight."

Flareup stared at him for a long moment, biting her lip. "No," she said, softly. "I know what I have to do." She leapt over the NEST troopers, folding into her cycle mode, and raced to the exit.

Ironhide cursed. That girl was going to get herself offline. But he knew his mission: he couldn't go tearing off to rescue her. If she wanted so badly to be a soldier, she'd learn to obey orders. Even if that meant the learning was painful.

Pars Septima

**Bourzey Castle**

With a blast, part of the wall beside the doorway exploded outward, pushing topheavy Blackout back a few steps and threatening to drop him on his rotor mount. Apparently Prime had gotten tired of messing with him through the confines of the door. Unfortunate. Blackout had rather enjoyed the frustration of a pinned-down Prime, futilely swinging his sword in the too-narrow space of the doorway. Prime kicked away a low pile of stone and stepped toward Blackout, brandishing his blade. Blackout blocked a straight-on strike with his tail rotor, its spinning blades creating a decent shield. Sparks flew as Prime's blade ground against Blackout's rotor shield.

Prime's shoulder jerked up, once, twice. Starscream, advancing on Prime from the right, launching his missiles straight into the Autobot's joint servos. Just like Starscream, Blackout thought, to bring a gun to a knife fight. Prime did a double take at Starscream—surprised to see him—and turned his attention away from Blackout, coming up with an offside uppercut to Starscream's chest plates.

To land his blow, Prime had nearly completely turned his back on Blackout. An insult Blackout was prone to forgive, since it left Prime so delightfully exposed. Blackout sliced down with his tailrotor, neatly severing two of Prime's back plates. Prime growled, turning to hit Blackout with a hard elbow that momentarily knocked Blackout's optical processors offline.

The Autobot followed that with a cross to the side of Blackout's face, which was partially deflected by the primary motor mounted on his shoulder. Still, it was enough to stagger the Decepticon to his knees.

Starscream lunged in with a right-handed punch to Prime's face. The jet screamed as the blow landed, bits of melted and warped talon that hadn't been repaired from his captivity snapping off. He followed it up with an angry chaingun blast to the face. One of Prime's eyelenses cracked into spiderwebs. He staggered, and slipping on the armor Blackout had sliced off him, landed heavily on Blackout, who had been struggling to his feet. They both went down in a furious fall of limbs. Starscream danced behind them, targeting for a clear shot.

Faces inches apart, Prime growled, "By Primus, you're ugly."

"A warrior has no use for vanity," Blackout snarled, twisting one of his hands inside their clutch to claw away at Prime's face. "But since you care so much about your looks…."

Prime tried to shake away Blackout's blunt fingers, digging into his cheeks with steady force. Blackout pressed the advantage, surging up, shoving Prime to the rocky ground.

Starscream crouched low, hoping for another shot, his rocket launcher ready.

Blackout rained a series of hard punches down on Prime's face and torso, the Autobot's arms failing to block them. Then Prime seized one of Blackout's back rotors, and pulled. The Decepticon arched up, screaming in pain, flat-handedly pushing at Prime's arm. Prime yanked Blackout down and onto his back. "Let's see how you like not flying," Prime said, tugging at the rotor, but the shift in their position had pinned the blade under Blackout's back, and Prime didn't have the leverage to rip it out. Blackout reached for his tail rotor, dropped in the sand when Prime had suckerpunched him, but before he could close his fingers over it, Prime had reared up, balling his fists together to bring them down in a crushing hammer blow on Blackout's face.

What the hell was Starscream waiting for? Blackout thought. Shoot him! Before he could form the words, the other Decepticon launched himself at Prime, boosted by his jets. He caught the Autobot under his upraised arms, tearing him off of Blackout and into a corner where the tower wall met the outside walls of the castle.

Blackout regained his feet, awkwardly. A purple robot zipped between his legs, pinging one of his rotors, but he didn't have time for that right now. He hadn't finished this fight.

Dead End was down to ten drones now, as his faithful companions. A few more were still functional, but no longer fight capable. He wished they'd been granted the decency of a repair bot, though even retrieving the wounded would be deadly here. He'd signalled to the fallen drones to play dead, hoping that the soldiers would ignore their limp and battered bodies so long as they weren't actively shooting.

His own crew worked hard to keep the Autobot and the NEST soldiers pinned in the mouth of the corridor. It was only a matter of time, he knew, until the humans ran out of ammunition. It was his job, he'd decided, to make that time come sooner rather than later. They had all the time in the world, and plenty of dead drones they could resupply off of. Patience wasn't often a virtue on the battlefield.

The purple cycle bot had raced through, knocking down two drones on her way to the exit. Breaking from fear, Dead End hoped. It evened the odds. A little bit. Still, he had a grudge with a cycle bot and part of him itched to take it out on the purple one. The one bot they had left, though, was plenty bad news. Big pulse cannons that tore chunks out of the masonry. Already one of the support piers had collapsed under a direct hit, and the arched ceiling bowed ominously. Just like a dumb Autobot to cave himself in.

Actually, now, that wasn't a half-bad idea.

Pars Octava

**Bourzey Castle, courtyard**

Ratchet worked feverishly at Chromia, trying to seal off the leaking hoses and cables from her missing arm, the punctures to her chassis, the dents to her helmet that she'd gotten from her rough landing. Oh, he'd gotten Starscream's point. And part of him roiled with a kind of pain—Starscream had made a good point. They'd left him to suffer with only stabilization and a little bit of analgesic gel, for five days. He'd do better by Chromia, not just for her own sake. For his.

Starscream and Blackout pinned Prime in the corner, taking turns pounding him. Prime, the fool, still tried to fight back, at one point spinning quickly around Starscream's arm, slamming the jet into the wall with a force that bent two of his ailerons. Blackout had thrown the Autobot back into the corner, driving his point home with a vicious kick to Prime's secondary leg joint, causing it to buckle in the wrong direction.

"Is that the best you can do?" Prime said, though his voice sounded tinnier than he probably wanted.

Blackout surged forward, ready to shove those arrogant words right back down Prime's throat, when he was held back by Starscream.

"Wait, you idiot," Starscream hissed in his ear. "There's a reason he's keeping us both here."

Blackout shot a look back at the crumbling doorway inside which he could still hear random fire from the drones.

"Finally caught on, did you?" Prime said. "Megatron never went for brains."

"You finish him," Starscream said, "I'll help the red runt."

Flareup brought the crushed remains of Chromia's severed arm back to Ratchet, holding it as if the limb terrified her. It did terrify her, honestly. Sand had clumped on the leaking liquids. It felt gritty and dry and…dead. Chromia looked awful—her punctured tire hung in shreds from its rim, and the colored goos and clamps that Ratchet applied to stop the leaking and sparking swelled up her shoulder joint to twice its normal size.

"What else can I do?" she asked, handing the limb to Ratchet.

"There's nothing we can do here. I don't have the proper tools with me to reattach it." He sounded angry. Examining the arm, he added, "Besides, this will need extensive repair before we reattach. Putting it back now would only cause her unnecessary pain."

Ironhide had been right after all. She should have stayed where she was useful.

Chromia groaned, tossing her head from side to side. Flareup dropped to her shock joint, not caring that sand was gritting in her servo, taking her sister's remaining hand. "Chromia? I'm right here. You're okay."

"Fuh-Flareup? Is everyone all right?"

"Everything's fine," she lied, hoping her sister's audio processors were too scrambled to make out the sounds of battle behind them. "Ratchet's right here, too."

"Flare?" Chromia turned her head blankly. She couldn't see. Flareup's eyes stung, and something hot and hard and painful swelled in her chest.

"Right here, Chrome," she said, leaning in.

"Get him for me." She wasn't talking about Ratchet.

Pars Nona

**Bourzey Castle, tower**

Dead End grunted in satisfaction. His drones had laid the explosive charges exactly where he'd told them to. They'd lost only one of their number. He ordered the non-fight-capable drones into recharge. Better, he thought, they shouldn't be awake for what's coming. If they ended up winning the battle, the drones would be dug out and reactivated. If not, well….

"They're doing something," De Guardia muttered. He was trying to watch them on the FLIR—night vision was useless in here, when blasts from every enemy shot would blank the damn things for thirty seconds.

"Yeah, it's called shooting at us," Kennedy muttered, ducking as a round whined over his head.

"No," Ironhide said. "He is right. They are merely laying down suppressive fire. Their fire rate has dropped 43%."

De Guardia squinted up at the Autobot. "Can you see what they're trying to do?" The robots had more highly refined ocular filters than they did—technology that Prime had decided was too dangerous to fall into human hands.

"It looks like they are carrying something to each of the pillars."  
"A range weapon, like a small mortar, maybe?"

"Unlikely."

"Explosives," Kennedy said. "They could be setting charges."

De Guardia looked at the room's ceiling. "What would happen if they blew those support pillars? You know, just out of curiosity."

Ironhide considered for a moment. "The ceiling would collapse."

"And us?"

A look at the vaulted arch of the corridor. "This would hold."

"Mmm-hmmm. But there'd be a couple of tons of rock between us, and, say, air." Kennedy's mouth thinned to a narrow line. "I bet that's what they're up to."

"That's stupid: the whole thing would fall right on top of them. They're not that stupid." De Guardia looked to Ironhide for confirmation.

Ironhide shook his head. "They are drones. They are that stupid."

"Well, then, gentlemen," MacCallum stood, shoving loaded magazines into his pockets, dropping the bulk of his equipment, "I suggest we make a run for it."

Pars Decia

**Bourzey Castle, courtyard**

Starscream cursed himself for his stupidity. Letting his desire to hurt Prime stand in the way of their mission. Megatron had demanded he retake the base: he would accept nothing less. Prime, in his disgustingly noble way, was trying to draw attention to himself, so that the pitiful fleshlings and the weaker bots could be safe. Noble sacrifice, possibly, in the wrong perspective. More accurately, misguided foolishness.

He vented his rage striking at the doorway with one elbow, sending chunks of stone flying. He was about to note that Dead End had done a surprisingly non-incompetent job in pinning the others down in the building when a river of the little human soldiers eddied around his feet, at a dead run out of the building. Damn Dead End! And damn these accursed humans. They'd shown him nothing but contempt during his capture. Enjoying his pain. One, he distinctly remembered, shot him even after he'd surrendered. Starscream would certainly enjoy their pain as well.

He turned, spraying the fleeing soldiers with fist-sized chunks of stone, bringing his chainguns to bear on them.

Before he could fire, an airborne purple shape hit him square in the chest, staggering him back. A cycle bot? But hadn't he already…? No, that one was blue. This one was purple. Idiot Autobots: think alike, and now they all want to look alike. Freakish. No matter: he could handle this one as easily as the first. His injured hand, with only one functional thumb, snatched the cycle bot by one tire.

"I shall enjoy this even more than the last time," he said, hauling her up to eye level.

And then he was thrown forward, landing roughly on his knees, crushing the cycle bot underneath him into the dirt. His left shoulder screamed in pain, shooting a fountain of sparks into the night air. The air suddenly had the tang of ozone and interior joint fluid.

"Want more of that, Decepticon?" Ironhide stepped over a pile of rubble at the entry to the courtyard, his other pulse cannon ready to fire. "I have plenty, just for you."

"How thoughtful," Starscream hissed through the pain. "I have something for you as well, Autobot." He fired his engines at maximum burn, the flames burning blue hot, catching the Autobot full on. Starscream heard the Autobot howl with great satisfaction. He reared back onto his knees, swinging the cycle bot in his hand like a flail, striking the still-blinded Autobot. Something gave on one of them with a gratifying electrical crack. His left arm protested being lifted—the Autobot had hit one of its aligning mechanisms—but he raised it enough to follow up with his chain gun, pushing himself to his feet.

The Autobot recovered more quickly than he would have hoped, snatching at the cycle bot dangling from Starscream's hand. She responded weakly—something had knocked out her internal gyros, it seemed she quite literally couldn't tell up from down.

"You want her?" Starscream teased the shorter Autobot, jerking the cycle bot just out of his reach, enjoying watching Ironhide jump futilely. "Maddening, isn't it? Something you want….Just…out…of…reach." He bobbed the cycle bot down and up to punctuate his sentence.

"You're not out of my reach, Starscream," the bot growled, rearming his pulse cannon.

"Just out of your league." Starscream leveled his chain gun. "Oh, by all means. You first." He waited.

"Just give her back."

Starscream laughed. "Give her back? I'm becoming quite attached to her, actually. I was thinking I might take her with me. Get her," he shrugged, his voice dripping with innuendo, "partially functional." Actually the thought disgusted him, but the stricken look on the Autobot's face was worth a little queasiness.

"She's a girl."

"If she is to be a warrior, she must learn that that means nothing." He could see Ironhide wrestling with his desire to blast away at him, but thinking he could somehow manage to talk Starscream into mercy. Unlikely, Starscream thought. Delusionally unlikely. Not after what he'd been through at their hands.

He jiggled her limp body. "Besides, she engaged me first." To Ironhide's doubting look, he shrugged. "Disbelieve me if you wish. I am a warrior. I do not engage with those who are no threat to me."

"You've engaged with me."

"Have I? It seems to me we are just having a conversation. Though I can see your confusion: you Autobots seem to think boring your enemies to death with tedious speeches is effective." He threw the purple bot's body behind him carelessly. "However, if you would like to change that…."

As far as Blackout could figure, he and Prime were too evenly matched. They'd exchanged dozens of heavy blows, with no one taking even the hint of an advantage. That classified this battle as, tactically, unwinnable—a characterization Blackout did not often come to, and did not like. He drove another shoulder into Prime's midsection when his comm buzzed. Only one bot would be this stupid.

"Yes, grounder," he snarled. "I am rather occupied at the moment." He ducked a swing of Prime's arm.

"Nothing left in the tower. We've wired the pillars to blow, thinking we could trap them inside, but they escaped."

"Escaped. As in, ran right past you." Blackout threw his entire weight, back first, into Prime, grinding him into the corner of the wall.

"Drones are not the best…."

"Don't blame anyone else for your failures, runt." A long silence.

"What should we do?"

Blackout grunted, taking a hard punch from Prime in his chassis. "Pull out. You're useless there. Of course, you're useless anywhere. When the battle runs away, next time, run after it." Blackout cut the comm.

"Battle not going as planned?" Prime smirked.

"Never does." No point telling the Autobot it wasn't his concern. Blackout considered, slowing down long enough to take a solid kick to his hip that plunged him into the wall himself. If the hall was set to collapse….

He seized Prime by the shoulders. The Autobot, hampered in his movements by his injured leg, couldn't leverage his way out of Blackout's grip. "New plan."

**Pars Undecima**

**Bourzey Castle, courtyard **

Dead End herded the drones out of the tower building. He'd reactivated the injured, so they made a pitiful spectacle, dragging and hobbling and half-carrying one another into the courtyard. "Stay here," he told the drones. "I'll come back for you." One buzzed at him, curiously. "Guard the injured." Drones hated not having a mission. Dead End could understand that. Boredom gave one altogether too much time to think. Or, not think, in their case. The emptiness between their thoughts seemed…unpleasant. Probably forgot they were even alive without something to do.

He took stock of the battlefield in the courtyard. In front of him, Starscream and the Autobot with the pulse cannons were staring each other down. Probably some idiot macho contest—the one who fired first was the bigger idiot. They both deserved to win. To his right, Blackout loomed, dragging a struggling Prime. Blackout had definitely seen better cycles. His armor was dented, one of his rotors had been snapped off, leaking coolant spattered down his chest plates.

He threw Prime bodily into the tower. "Detonate." His voice cracked over the comm. Dead End rushed to hit the remote detonator. An earth-juddering thump, Blackout's shape silhouetted against a flash of reddish light, and then the slow groan of collapsing stone. Sixty feet of masonry, collapsing over where the hall had been. Where the Autobot now was. And would probably stay for a while.

The Autobot playing tagsies with Starscream flinched at the sound of the explosion.

One of the drones bleated, tugging at Dead End's wrist plating. He looked where the drone was pointing. That purple cycle bot, the one that had zipped out earlier, staggering to upright, sighting a weapon right at Starscream. "Thanks," Dead End said, and jumped into his vehicle mode, racing toward the bot. Call him useless, would they? Make fun of him, didn't they? See how they liked the little red runticon saving both of their actuators in one day?

"No, you don't!" he ran head on into the purple bot, knocking her off balance. She flailed, knocking Dead End flat, and hard. It had seemed like a good idea. She rose up, her hands shaking—lack of servo control. He could see frayed cables bursting from her arm joints. But at this close a range, she could aim her weapon well enough to blow his stupid head off. Which was apparently exactly what she was intending to do.

"Why don't you look behind you?" Starscream sneered.

"You really think you can fool me with that, Starscream? I'm not as stupid as you are."

"Oh well. I tried to warn you."

Blackout swung his doubled fists into the back of Ironhide's head, knocking him cold. "Why didn't you fraggin' shoot him?"

"It was more fun this way."

Blackout stepped in deliberately too close to Starscream. "You know what?" he said, his voice dangerous, "Someday your idea of fun is going to get us all offline."

"I had the situation under control, Blackout," Starscream said, tightly.

Blackout decided to change the subject. Telling Starscream he was an idiot didn't accomplish anything more than getting his own circuits overheated. If need be, there was time enough later. "Where's the runt?"

"With the drones?"

They heard a loud squeal from behind Starscream, and turned. "Nope," Blackout said. "Getting his skidplate kicked by a girl."

"He'll never live this one down."

Blackout's eyes glinted in the black mask of his face. "Not if I can help it. You too busy having _fun_ to save his chassis?"

"I shall handle it."

"What should we do about this one?"

Starscream considered. Behind him, Dead End howled as the purple bot landed a series of flailed rabbit punches in his belly. "We have failed, I am afraid, at securing the base. But perhaps if we brought a prisoner…. What do you think?"

"I have entirely given up having ideas," Blackout said, kneeling his weight on top of Ironhide, who had begun to stir. "The last one I had was to rescue you."

Pars Duodecima

**Bourzey Castle, courtyard**

As Starscream had expected, the NEST soldiers were bent on having their glorious last stand. They poured out of the doorway, where they'd apparently all clustered for refuge like rodents, weapons blazing away in a show that was more light and sound than actual damage. Starscream was unimpressed. The drones managed, even without much prompting, to bottle them back up with suppressive fire. Dead End would need significant repairs. He was online, but only marginally functional. The first thing he'd said was to demand thanks for having saved Starscream's life. Starscream had slapped him until he rebooted. Presumptuous little runticon.

Blackout had done a thorough job restraining Ironhide—his pulse cannons were torn off, and his arms hung loosely, disconnected from their sockets. He shoved the Autobot down. Ironhide tried to stop or catch his fall, but his arms responded weakly. He landed heavily on his chestplate. The purple cycle bot hadn't taken more than a kick to the face to shut down, and lay, feebly twitching at Starscream's feet.

"You transport him and the little grounder," Starscream said, in what he thought was his leadership voice. "I shall take this one." He curled his good hand around the cycle bot's skullframe.

"No you won't." From the blind, Ratchet stepped out, holding Chromia's weapon in his hand, aiming it right at Starscream's head.

Starscream laughed. "Finally scraped up a bit of courage, have you?"

"I am serious, Starscream. Let her go."

"Or, what? You will shoot? You would do more damage to your precious principles than to me."

"My principles matter less than you hurting an innocent."

"An innocent? Hardly. You know enough to stay out of battle. She did not."

"Take me, instead, then."

Blackout interrupted with a laugh. It was a dark, ugly sound. "Do you Autobots never tire of this ridiculous nobility of yours? Did you not see what it got your great leader?" He gestured back at the mountain of fallen rubble that had been the Bourzey tower keep.

"It is almost tempting," Starscream added, dropping the cycle bot and walking right up to Ratchet until the barrel of the borrowed weapon brushed his chest. "Almost. I certainly have a few conversations I would like to have with you." He looked down at the weapon, smiled, and looked back up. "What is behind that plating, I wonder. Do you know?" His gaze bore down on Ratchet.

"M-main power core coupling. Coolant line," Ratchet said, numbly. He tightened his grip around the weapon.

"If you aimed it right," Starscream said, softly, "you could hit the fuel line. Can you imagine the fireball that would make?" Ratchet winced. Starscream pressed closer, the barrel of the weapon scratching his paint. "Do it."

"Did you kill the human?" Ratchet kept his gaze on Starscream's chest plate. "When you escaped?"

"No."

"I don't believe you."

Starscream laughed. "Then why did you ask?"

"Did you hurt her?

Starscream's laugh cut off abruptly. "No more than was necessary." His face hardened. "I do not lie about such inconsequential things." He forced his smile back on his face, but his eyes narrowed to slits. "It is unwise do draw a weapon on me, Autobot. I spared you before because you were no threat." He moved, lightning-quick, snatching the gun from Ratchet's hand. "You are still no threat. But I suggest you refrain from testing my forbearance any further." He dropped the Autobot with a punch to the midsection that lifted him off his feet. Ratchet landed heavily, head bowed. All the surrender Starscream needed.

"Leave him," Starscream said. "He is useless. Is that not true, Autobot?" He watched Ratchet's head sink lower. "Besides, we can only manage the two."

"He had a point," Blackout said. "Why her? He would be more valuable."

Starscream rolled his red eyes. "He," he gestured at Ironhide, "knows something worthwhile. And she…" His eyes narrowed. "She has not suffered enough."

Ironhide suddenly lashed out with one arm, trying to hit Blackout in a knee-hook. The blow went wide—Blackout had done a solid job dislocating Ironhide's arm from its socket. The Decepticon let his leg swing high, going with Ironhide's pull, and over the Autobot's body, landing square on the Autobot's pelvic frame. With casual ease, Blackout grabbed the Autobot's head, jerking upward with a sharp twist that snapped Ironhide's spinal connective cables. "I," he said, coldly, "have had enough feisty out of you." The Autobot collapsed limply to the ground.

Blackout gestured at Ratchet. "And him? Shall I finish him off, since you seem so squeamish about it?" He gave Starscream a measuring look.

"Let him go. Let him have the honor and glory of digging what's left of his leader out from under the tower." Starscream clutched the cyclebot, and jumped into the sky, firing his jets. "Are you coming?"

"You have had enough 'fun' for the day?" Blackout began poking Ironhide's sickeningly limp limbs through a carry harness.

"Not enough to make up for what we are likely to face for our failure," Starscream said, grimly.

"We were never expected to succeed," Blackout said, testing the carry harness. "You have not figured out by now how Megatron works? He expects us to fail, and to suffer."

"Well, then," Starscream smirked, "You shall be the one to tell him that we have disappointed him yet again."


End file.
